Back when I lived in Hartford, I thought the social tendencies
of the underclass spelled certain doom for our nation -- wasteful personal
finance habits, too many poorly-reared children, and an overall lack of good
manners. Having lived in
Darien for the past five years, I'm certain the behavior of the privileged is
equally bad, if not worse -- poor personal finance habits, too many
poorly-reared children and an overall lack of good manners.

The
main difference is that the well-to-do have no excuse.

Both the poorest and the richest
municipalities in Connecticut do a lot of the same things about which they should know better or try harder.

I'll get back to that in a second, first a couple of
disclaimers. First, Darien isn't the richest town -- New Canaan beats it
out by a nose, in an annual per capita amount about equal to the cost of a
few Iraqi oil fill-ups for a Land Cruiser. But that's the 1990
census, so ya never know.

Also, not everyone in Hartford is poor, nor is everyone in
Darien rich. But having lived in both places, I can make more than a few
generalizations.

You
see a lot of incivility and downright rudeness in both towns. In Hartford,
the thundering car stereos audible from a few blocks away always made me
cringe.

Here
in Darien, motor vehicle misbehavior is less intrusive, but more dangerous,
as when drivers in behemoth SUV's try to beat pedestrians to the crosswalk.

Folks
in both towns feel the need to blow their dough on designer fashions.
Back in the 'hood, no self-respecting, trash-talking young male would head
out the door without first donning his Allen Iverson sneakers and Fubu
jacket. Of course, there are lots of Darien 'hood wannabes doing the
same.

And
locals here will also not think twice about dropping what is more than a
week's pay for most people in Hartford on a Lilly Pulitzer outfit for their
precious 8-year-old Ashley.

Conspicuous
consumption in Darien is so conspicuous it isn't even conspicuous.

Refrigerators.
People in both places spend way too much to keep their cottage cheese cold,
albeit for different reasons. In Hartford, a lot of folks just don't
have the dough to walk into Sears and buy a fridge so they rent from a loan
shark thinly-disguised as a rental center. They end up paying
$1500 for a $500 appliance.

Here
on the Gold Coast, the must-have cooler is the Sub Zero -- which is a brand
name and not an IQ score. Sub Zero doesn't make refrigerators, they
make "refrigeration systems" by which you can make what looks like
a closet door or a bread drawer be a refrigerator.

One
Sub Zero purchaser I know told me the several thousand dollars they spent
was well worth it because their small children could go to the
drawer/refrigerator and get their own juice drinks.

I
didn't have the heart to tell him that this innovation has been around since
the icebox -- it's called a bottom shelf.

Cell
phones. Rich and poor alike are hooked on these things. This is a lost
cause, I know. There are two kinds of people when it comes to cell
phones -- those who think they are just terrific and folks like me who think
people walking around yakking look silly and are being rude.

And
don't get me started on the blabbermouths who always seem to be in front of
me in a cashier line. It's all I can do to keep from ripping it out of
their hands and stomping on it. Remember when John Belushi smashes the
folk singer's guitar in "Animal House" and then mutters a
sheepish, "Sorry?" That's my fantasy.

Schools
in both places are segregated. Hartford, at least, is trying with its
magnet schools which are seeing some success in bringing in some students
from the suburbs. The last time I checked, there were no
African-Americans in either the middle school or high school in
Darien, except for half a dozen carefully selected girls from New York who
attend the high school and live together in a house as part of the A Better
Chance program.

People
in Darien say, "there are no black people who live here, so what can
you do?" Well, Simsbury manages to take a few score minority
Hartford kids every year as part of the state's Project Choice
program. Simsbury, by the way, kicks Darien's butt every year when the
Connecticut Mastery Test scores are released.

Why
does any of this matter? On a practical level, poor people who
don't spend money sensibly lose out in several ways, from the stress of too
much debt to being unable to afford reliable transportation for
employment. And it seems to me that anyone who would buy
themselves a $5000 refrigerator ought to buy themselves a nice $1500
Frigidaire and three Kenmores for those unfortunates at the rental
center. The milk will still be kept cold.

And
we can learn something from a group modern sociologists are calling the
"Belongers." Belongers are middle and lower-middle income people
who tend to live in the Midwest, whose social lives revolve around places
like the Elks' Club and the church and who do most of their shopping
at Wal-Mart and KMart. Belongers have lower divorce rates, less
alcoholism and drug-addiction and generally lead "happier" lives
than those at the ends of the economic spectrum.

Some
trend-watchers are seeing Americans of all income groups, notably those in
the Pacific Northwest, moving away from brand name, high-end conspicuous
consumption and instead opting for a more basic life fulfilled with simpler
and more altruistic pleasures.

The
optimist in me is encouraged by this. Maybe the "in" crowd,
or at least how we define it, is on the way out.